GUEST COMMENTARY
Montana Democratic Convention, Day 3
By Pete Talbot, 8-06-06
 | |
|
Senate candidate Jon Tester came to my motel room yesterday. It was just a coincidence. It turned out that my room was in the perfect location for Tester to make his grand entrance for the keynote speech to Montana Democrats. The spotlight could hit him as he descended the stairs from my room to the podium.
We were able to chat for a bit while various invocations, announcements, the pledge of allegiance, etc., went on below.
He’d just finished cutting something at his farm in Big Sandy -- wheat, hay, barley -- I’m not sure, I’m a city boy. He’d come to Lewistown to rally the troops.
Our conversation was light. Everyone was eating at the tables below us and I had a sandwich with me in my room. I offered him half. He declined.
“Although I should,” he said, pointing to a serious gut. “I’m just wasting away.”
This guy is easy to like -- unpretentious, straight-forward and self-deprecating. If anyone can out folksy that folksy incumbent, Republican Senator Conrad Burns, it’s Jon Tester.
“I may not look much like a U.S. Senator but maybe it’s time the senate looked more like Montana,” Tester told the crowd.
It’s going to be a close race, though. The negative TV commercials from the Republicans are hammering Tester. Even with Burns’ chronic case of foot-in-mouth disease, his $10 million war chest can buy a lot of spin in Montana’s relatively cheap TV market.
But Tester can win, the same way Burns won 18 years ago. Montanans are often suspicious of their lawmakers back in Washington, D.C. When they think a senator or representative is forgetting their Montana roots, they’ll boot the rascal. That’s what happened to Democratic Senator John Melcher. A little-known county commissioner from Billings, Conrad Burns, took him down. The roles could be reversed now, with Burns being the Washington insider and Tester being the “real deal,” as his supporters like to say.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
': http://www.rh.edu/~stodder/BE/Wolf_Ruin.htm
He writes:
>>>>> The US is now on the comfortable path to ruin. It is being driven along a road of ever rising deficits and debt, both external and fiscal, that risk destroying the country's credit and the global role of its currency. It is also, not coincidentally, likely to generate an unmanageable increase in US protectionism. Worse, the longer the process continues, the bigger the ultimate shock to the dollar and levels of domestic real spending will have to be. Unless trends change, 10 years from now the US will have fiscal debt and external liabilities that are both over 100 per cent of GDP. It will have lost control over its economic fate...
Politicians wait until crises hit. Statesmen foresee and then act to prevent them. What is the chance of such an economic statesman emerging after the election? Almost none, I fear.<<<<
>>>>>>It would be far better, says U.S. PIRG, to say no to all new coal-burning plants, put gasifying technology on a far back burner, and invest instead in promising, zero-pollution solar and wind energy installations that could substitute for all the new coal plants proposed.<<<<<
A poll by the Missoulian awhile back found that 71% of Montanans want coal development. Mr. Tester, after a lifetime in Montana, has NO position on coal development. Unlike Governor Schweitzer who has declared his support for the Highwood plant, Mr. Tester is silent. His website "issues" section talks in terms of the US PIRG position. From that alignment of position and in the vacuum of a real stand, he leaves us to deduce that he is AGAINST Montana coal development and the 71% of Montanans who want it. Whether a voter is for or against coal development, Mr. Tester should find the Montana courage to tell his neighbors which side of the fence he is standing on.
It seems to me that, as important as coal is to Montana, and the nation because of our energy crisis that Senator Tester should have something to say on the matter. But, then there is this from Pete Talbot, "There are some rumors of discontent within the Democratic Party. There’s a potential plank being advanced by the environmental wing of the party that deals with coal development. While some Democrats advocate more development in the Eastern Montana coalfields, notably Governor Schweitzer’s coal-to-diesel proposal, others want to take a go-slow approach to mining."
Strategically speaking, I suppose he should say nothing specific.
As for voting for your nice neighbor; isnt that how Senator Burns got is foot in the door? Its politics.
When it comes to abilities and political acumen, Tester is everything Burns wishes he were. Montanan for generations, a farmer, in touch, and nimble with his mind. They are both very personable.
Matt